Reya the Misanthrope returns! I personally don’t like New Year’s resolutions because they reek of impending failure. Reya’s opinions are far harsher.

Dear Posh Guys:

I had no idea. I’m not dumb, or uneducated. I’m just American. We shy away from words like “master.” We eat a lot of desserts, but call only one of them pudding. We like tea, but mostly we drink coffee, no variety of which is named after our country, members of our peerage, or our former colonies.

Last week I mentioned some things people wanted to see more of in Ben & Winslow. One of the top three was “people getting mauled by bears.” I hadn’t really intended to draw a comic about bears–that was just a joke answer in the poll I was conducting. But what the hell, you know? Let’s get some bears up in this joint.

The assignment was a simple one: consolidate the email subscriber lists into a single spreadsheet. Or at least it seemed simple. Three tabs of blotter acid and a fifth of Jack later, and it became clear that the swarming birds would never allow it. They were all over the keyboard, shitting and clack-clack-clacking away on the IBM Selectric typewriter I’d brought from home. Liz said to use Excel, but a laptop is the establishment’s computer—the machine’s machine. You gotta feel the ink on your fingers, suck down the fumes if you wanna stay free and connected to your craft.

Welcome to 2013, fools! I decided to start things out right this year by drawing a comic with unexpected subject matter. So today we have a Ben & Winslow strip all about menstruation. If you were keeping a list of all the potential subjects I could have written about, go ahead and mark that one off. I can wait.